Apple’s Quarterly Revenue Tops US$100 Billion; Becomes World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

There are plenty of smiling faces at Apple HQ this week. The tech giant has just reported that its quarterly revenue (Q4 2020) exceeded US$100 billion for the first time in its history. And at least for the last three months of 2020, Apple was the biggest smartphone seller in the world, thanks in large part to the stellar performance of its new 5G-capable iPhone 12 lineup in China.

The company said its quarterly revenue grew by 21% to US$111.44 billion (~RM450 billion). Reuters, citing data from research firm IDC, said that Apple captured 23.4% of the global smartphone market last quarter, making it the reigning king of the hill – at least for awhile.

Apple has now 1.65 billion devices active throughout the world, company CEO Tim Cook told Reuters, and that includes over 1 billion iPhones. Once again, China came in strongly for the company – surging sales in the country by 57% to US$21.31 billion (~RM86.2 billion). Cook noted that two of the top three selling smartphones in urban China were Apple products and added that, “upgraders in particular set an all-time record in China.”

The rosy numbers for Apple are somewhat surprising, considering that smartphone sales were largely battered by the COVID-19 pandemic last year. But even back then, there were strong indications that Apple was doing better than other smartphone makers, including chief rival Samsung. Lo and behold, Samsung recently reported that its mobile business declined by 11% in the last quarter.

But will that change with the recent launch of the Samsung Galaxy S21? We’ll have to see in the upcoming first quarter revenue report for 2021.